Dana's View: Something to crow about

Friday

Aug 11, 2017 at 3:01 AM

By Dana Eldridge

A red tailed hawk landed on what must be one of its favorite perches, a long dead locust tree close by our home. From here it can peruse the marsh and the surrounding woods - from this vantage point, it can see about all that it needs to see.

But his lofty perch has a downside as well. On this perch he is visible to all around and today’s all around included about 35 noisy crows. How they bedeviled this raptor, this sometimes eater of crows.

Their alarm cries were continuous and a few of the more daring birds made swooping passes at him. Eventually, as often happens, the hawk had had enough; he headed for some of the nearby sheltering cedars and disappeared from sight. The crows dispersed, with chortling caws, their mission a success.

Watching this noisy display brought back all manner of memories regarding crows. About 70 years ago we lived summers in an un-electrified tiny building on 20 acres of waterfront land, land that my grandfather owned. We rented out our winter house for the summer (this was during the Depression when money was scarce).

Although it may be hard to imagine, from time to time I transgressed the edicts imposed on my behavior, with the result that I would be grounded for a time.

One sultry summer Sunday my folks decided to go for a rowing trip down the river to the clam flats at Cockle Cove, a quarter-mile away. It looked to be a dull morning. For a 10-year-old rowing was about as exciting as watching grass grow; rowing with my parents to go clamming was in no way, a pleasant thought, but there was no way out of it.

Where my folks went, I went. I usually liked it, but not this time. I twitched, I wiggled, and jiggled. Every move brought a growl from my father.

“Sit still.”

‘Don’t move around so much.”

“Level out the boat.”

“SIT STILL.”

The greenheads with their stinging bites added another level of discomfort but thankfully, the trip was fairly short. We easily gathered our quota of clams (steamers), had a swim and devoured our picnic lunch on the shores of Nantucket Sound, looking across those miles of blue waters to the luminous white sands of Monomoy shimmering in the distance.

It was a normal scenario, but at the same time exceptional (it took me a long time to realize just that). But in the immediate offing, loomed the aspect of that long tedious row back to the camp. Apparently this thought had occurred to my folks as well,

“Dana , why don’t you walk back to the camp, across the marsh, go straight back now, no side trips, no fooling around.”

Hallelujah, now they were talking. Going back across the marshes meant unlimited opportunities – opportunity to run, to explore, and to check out the whereabouts of the crow’s nests. For the past week or two I had been hearing the characteristic gulping cries of the chicks somewhere close by.

Upon returning to the camp I was issued yet another edict,

“We have to go uptown to get some ice. We’ll be back in half an hour or so. See if you can stay put until we get back. That means don’t go anywhere. Don’t move!”

There is little elasticity in such an edict but maybe, just possibly, ‘don’t move’ meant don’t move much and those crow’s nests were not that far away. Eagerness overcame the edict and it was over the hill and up the tree. I came down with two very raucous chicks, accompanied by half a dozen adult crows whirling around, shrieking their displeasure.

Back at the camp I couldn’t wait to show my folks my new treasures. Apparently it never occurred to me that the very presence of these birds was obvious evidence of my stretching the ‘Don’t Move’ edict to its limit and perhaps a bit more.

“Maybe we should have left him in the marsh”, my dad said.

“Who is going to feed these things,” my mother replied.

Mothers tend to get to the core of things very quickly.

I was grounded again but by being grounded for two weeks it would give me time to learn how and what to feed the half grown crows and maybe teach them a few tricks. The fact that the crows would teach me never occurred.

These birds never really became pets. They did survive on a diet of bread soaked in beaten egg and eventually learned to fly. That was after I ran them around the fields raising and lowering them on my arm inducing (I hoped) flight. It worked.

They stayed around the camp for a while, but their stays got shorter and shorter, their absences longer and longer, until - no more.

I remember being sad but mostly relieved. The crows were back where they belonged and I didn’t have to care for them anymore. Such was my foray into the rituals of crow keeping. A very brief and singular foray.

And now, all these years later, I find myself still bemused by the antics of these intelligent birds. And, incidentally, did you know that a grouping of these birds is called a ‘murder of crows’?

I wonder why.

Dana Eldridge a former teacher, is the author of three books, "Once Upon Cape Cod," "Cape Cod Lucky" and "A Cape Cod Kinship: Two Centuries, Two Wars, Two Men." He lives in Orleans.